


im dreaming of a world with you (and all the things that we could do)

by Hellonightmares



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Character Study, F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, all of this is in the first half of the story and about jemma's mum' life, also there's a suicide but its only for like a sentence and it's not anyone from the show, also there's people burning other people with their consent (they are minors though), if any of this could triggering for you pls don't read, lesbian jemma simmons, there's a cult thing but it's about jemma's mum, this is kind of a
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 16:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11317674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellonightmares/pseuds/Hellonightmares
Summary: au where you get your soulmate's name (soul-name) on your wrist between the ages of ten and twentyjemma simmons received daisy johnson, growing up and falling in love ensues





	im dreaming of a world with you (and all the things that we could do)

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first time I've ever used a song title for a story title, it's from kodaline's lose your mind. read the tags for potential triggers.

Jemma Simmons received her soul-name on her twelfth birthday, a full year before anyone else in her class which was not a fun thing to have happen. By the time, she was fifteen and about half her grade had their names but the constant questions from young kids, classmates and even strangers about what her wrist said had not slowed and was driving her crazy. It was less the questions and more the reaction when she finally gave in and showed them her wrist, so she decided to wear long sleeves forever. It was not the most realistic idea but she is nothing if not stubborn so she wore long sleeves for about two months until her mum sat her down and told her that there was nothing wrong with having a girl’s name but she understood if Jemma (she isn’t called Simmons until the Academy) didn’t want to tell people.

The thing is, Jemma wasn’t embarrassed about having a girl’s name and she knew that there was nothing wrong with it but she hated the way people treated her once they knew and there were these three girls in the class above her that really didn’t like it. Jemma almost told her mum about the girls but she was embarrassed that she hadn’t figured out a way to make them stop on her own. Her mum gave Jemma two things that day, the first a beautiful bracelet that was the perfect shape to cover name which couldn’t have been a coincidence and Jemma wanted to ask her mum why she would have this because she knew that her mum didn’t have a soul-name. The second came ten minutes later and changed her view of the world forever.

She hadn’t realised how little she really knew about her mum until she told her that when she was Jemma’s age she joined a gang (a cult but her mum even then she wouldn’t call it that) of boys and girls who believed that soulmate names were a tracking device from the government (her mum wasn’t crying as she told it but it was the kind of emotionless facial expressions that made Jemma kind of want her mum to cry). Her mum was living in and out of foster homes and she hadn’t ever felt loved until this twenty-year-old came up to her and told her about somewhere that she would be loved unconditionally. 

As she went on and it got worse but Jemma knew the reason that her mum had a blank wrist was coming up and she was scared but most of all angry at these people who would hurt her mum, the kindest and most loving person Jemma had ever met. She was obviously trying not to get worked up and Jemma didn’t want her to stop so she put her arms around her mum and the look that her mum gave her was nothing short of bliss. Even though she was telling Jemma about how when she didn’t want to leave school and the group got upset she still radiated her usual glow. 

Her mum has this way of telling stories, when Jemma was younger she would enlist her dad to do the voices as she told the story of the princess and the pea (a personal favourite of Jemma’s) -but the way she told this story, her story was heartbreaking in a way that fifteen-year-old Jemma had never experienced previously. Before she told her about the next part, she asked if she wanted to hear this and made sure that that it wasn’t too much for her and maybe she should’ve said it was but she needed to know so she let her mum go on.

Her mum (never mother, she always said that it was too formal for her), in a whisper, told Jemma about how she finally decided that her new family was worth giving up her education for because they were the only good she’d ever known.

They were living in this communal home near the beach and every month the older members would have a beach ceremony and her mum had never been allowed to come until the one time she did. The younger kids always talked about what they thought they might do there, maybe they swam out to the islands, perhaps they painted each other and danced all night long, or the scandalous rumour which was definitely a favourite amongst the older kids that weren’t allowed there was that it was a group orgy. Jemma couldn’t help but giggle when she heard this and her mum looked at her like she forgot that she was there, Jemma realised that it must have been a long time since she had told anyone this. 

The pause before she told her what the beach entailed was the longest silence of Jemma’s life, her mum kept looking like she was going to continue but just didn’t until the home phone rang which snapped her out of whatever state she had been in. It was a telemarketer which her mum always had a sweet spot for but she hung up the phone almost immediately. When she sat back down she went right into the story of the beach and it wasn’t an orgy -it was something even more disturbing. 

The beach was an initiation ceremony. Her mum remembered it as clear as day. There were about twenty people aged 15 and over so her mum at 15 was one of the younger ones. Everyone was wearing minimal clothing but what must have been arm warmers but then seemed like a uniform (they were back with white stripes and little purple buttons near the wrist). The man who was leading her brought her to the middle of the circle with another girl who looked around her age and just as frightened as she did. The man quietened everyone down and they all banged the drums for a while and then a two women brought out fire sticks.

Jemma froze as her mum started to tell her about the idea of ‘cleansing’ their bodies from the government and how the pain was worth the life of genuine love. Her mum was crying at this point and all Jemma could do was holder her close and run her hand through her hair. They burnt off the soul-names on her mum’s and the other girl’s wrist and it was awful, not just because it hurt like no other pain but because her mum had experience holding in her tears and somehow managed to do so (she was later told that only two other people had ever done so) the girl, Allison -her name was Allison, did no such thing. Allison cried silently as they burnt her mum’s name but when they came for Allison she started sobbing but didn’t back out and after it was finished she just sat in the sand for hours with her mum tried to comfort her.

Jemma couldn’t understand how her mum comforted this girl whilst her name (Jemma’s dad’s name) was gone forever but that’s what she did and for hours and hours and by the end Allison was in her lap and they fell asleep and woke up in the morning to a household full of celebrating people. As soon a Allison saw all the people she ran straight back to the beach and her mum almost went after her but was grabbed by a younger boy to ask her about last night. 

Her mum had run out of tears as she quietly finished the story up by telling Jemma that her biggest regret was not going after Allison because when she did, two hours later she found Allison’s body in the water and she wasn’t breathing. Her mum told her that that made her realised how fucked up it was and called the police about Allison but also about the children that were in this house and the police came and took all the children including her to social services.

Jemma was in awe of her mother and she didn’t know how to make her feel better and she had a feeling that nothing she could say would help so all she did was sit by her as she went to sleep and then went and got her dad to put her to bed. After that day, Jemma and her mum were insanely close and they talked about everything. Jemma’s view on her mum and dad’s ‘boring’ life and marriage changed and she found herself so happy that her mum could come out of that and find happiness and her true love. Every night from then on without exception she kissed her wrist and hoped that Daisy Johnson was doing okay.

Jemma had wanted to be a police officer ever since a woman came to her school to talk about protecting people in the first grade but the major problems she came across once she was applying for the (police) academy is that she just wasn’t fit enough. This was something she had obviously thought about before because it’s a vital element in the whole badass policewomen but her natural talent for picking locks and solving cases and her commitment and love of science had managed to get her to the official try-out week. Once she was there she realised how gravely she had miscalculated how important the athletics would be but she stuck it out the whole week and even though in her ten years of wanting this she had been told by plenty of adults to not go into the field and just stay in the labs that was the first time she truly thought it for herself. 

She knew she would be at a disadvantage because she was younger than the rest of them (she graduated early) but that week was absolute hell -that is with the exception of Julie. By all accounts Jemma and Julie shouldn’t have gotten along but they did, really well. Julie didn’t want to be there but she was accepted after she applied when she was drunk and didn’t have anything else to do, Jemma was intrigued by this because she couldn’t even think about doing something so spontaneous. Julie was the first person to call her Simmons and it’s completely because she thought it was cute and Jemma was overwhelmed that this girl thought her name was cute that she started introducing herself as Simmons. Julie was about five years older than Jemma so nothing ever happened but she harboured this crush for years and sometimes they caught up to have drinks and talk about how they were doing. So, she doesn’t regret going to the police training week because she met one of her best friends and she later finds out that the reason she got tracked down to join SHIELD is because one of the trainers recommended her.

Despite having Daisy Johnson on her wrist, she never sought her out or thought about soulmates in general apart from wistful dreaming of a future where Daisy are married and living in an apartment with a cat and infinite love for each other. Along with often remembering her mum's story and Jemma had seen enough Hallmark soulmate movies to last a lifetime and it really didn’t help that none of them were about two girls.

The main reason that she didn’t spent too much time pondering about that stuff was because school was more important and she got more out of it. Learning and experimenting were the best things in Jemma’s life and there wasn’t anything wrong with that so initially when she was approached by the Academy she turned them down because she had moved on from the dreams of being a police officer and was living a good life working at a research lab and living with her parents but saving money to move out. It wasn’t until her older sister who was visiting for the holidays found their business card in her room (Jemma was always pretty bad at keeping secrets back then) and confronted her about it that she eventually gave in and holy shit is she glad for the existence her sister.

Jemma’s days at the Academy were everything she had hoped police training would be and more. Everyone was smart and even though some were athletic, most were more the Julia's type (although none were quite like her) and Jemma took this environment in stride and excelled in her work but had a challenging time forming strong connections. When Jemma first arrived all the new recruits sort of stuck together which she liked and she was the one that’s came up with the idea to call each other by their last names (courtesy of Julia) and when that took off she couldn’t have been happier but as time went on people started to separate and find friends and that’s where she has always struggled. So, she focused on her work and tried not to let the pranks that they older students pulled on her bother her and she was okay because the work was really interesting and soon she was flying ahead of the class- and that’s when she was introduced to Fitz.

She had probably met him before because he was going by his last name which made her feel weirdly happy but she didn’t remember him and he didn’t remember her and even though he was on the engineering side and her the biochemical side they worked together marvelously -one professor said they were like peanut butter and jelly and they hadn’t really heard anything better since. Their friendship was something of the ages, or at least that’s what Fitz said once when they got drunk with his roommate and Jemma has always liked that idea. They spent most of the time doing work and personal experiments but when they weren’t working they were talking or just hanging out so most people thought they were dating and at first it bothered Jemma but after a while she got used to it and if someone asked how her boyfriend Fitz was, she’d say he was good. 

It took Jemma a long time to tell/show him her name (she still kept the bracelet on) because even though she knew Fitz would be okay with it she hadn’t shown anyone since her mum so it was a big deal to her. She started by telling him that she was gay and then it was easier to just show him her name and he grinned, and told her he loved and it was a really nice moment but she couldn’t help but feel there was this underlying tension that wasn’t there before. They both graduate early and they had no idea what to do, it felt like high school graduation all over again until Simmons was approached by Coulson asking her to go on a long-term field mission with a team and this time she said yes straight away but with one condition -Fitz came too. It took a lot of convincing and she thinks that the biggest reason that he agreed was the fact that he would be able to experience a military transport aircraft in person and she couldn’t really blame him.

Being on the Bus was a new experience for Jemma, it was kind of like the first few months at the Academy but this time they really were stuck together and the other members were way more experienced than her or Fitz. They introduced themselves and Fitz and Simmons and it wasn’t until later that they thought to do any different. It was a mess for a while, with her and Fitz always in the lab or the engine room, Ward using the punching bag or playing solitaire and May and Coulson in the front. It took them all a while to settle in and trust each other but after spending enough time together you get at least a little close with one another. Fitz took a shine to Ward, she was pretty sure he saw him as some kind of role model but Jemma always found him a little annoying so she usually stayed in the lab by herself until Ward got sick of Fitz following him around. Occasionally Jemma would go out on the field or Fitz would need to defuse a bomb but mostly her and Fitz stayed on the Bus and at those times it was pretty close to being at the Academy.

Some nights they would all sit in ‘the common room’ dubbed by Ward, and sit and drink and sometimes talk. Jemma didn’t drink when she was a teenager because she was always younger than everyone else and they found it weird being around her and she only had a few drinks at the Academy so she hadn’t realised that she had a high tolerance until one night they were all taking shots and she seemed to be the only one in control of what she was saying, it’s night she is one hundred percent sure nobody else remembers. 

They had somehow gotten onto the topic of soul-names and Coulson was going on this big rant about how it’s absurd that no one had figures out why you get your name somewhere between the ages of ten and twenty when Fitz asked him why he thought that happened he went quiet and said he had no idea. And then Fitz asked the question that she was dreading but she knew that if he wasn’t off his knocker he wouldn’t have asked it, Coulson told everyone that he didn’t have one and then shut up for the rest of the night but that didn’t stop Fitz. May said she had her ex-husband’s name and proceeded to tell everyone twenty ways she could kill them if they ever told anyone which wasn’t as impressive as it sounds because she was stumbling over every second word. Ward flipped the question on Fitz who showed everyone his very boring Jane Smith that he had complained about to Jemma about a billion times before and then Ward just left the room and soon afterwards you could hear him puking and then stumbling into bed. That broke up the weird and intimate setting and made everyone realise they needed to be in bed a while ago. At the time, she was incredible thankful that they didn’t get to her but maybe it would’ve been a good thing to have someone other than Fitz to talk about Daisy with because the few times she brought her up Fitz went strangely quiet.

The first time Jemma saw Skye she couldn’t breathe and for a second she genuinely thought that this was the end until Fitz nudged her and she realised that Skye had moved on from the labs and Jemma had the instinct to follow her but she was going to be (hopefully) on the Bus for a while. The girl was trouble but obviously worth it if Coulson of all people wanted her on the team so she knew there was only one reason her heart sped up whenever Skye was in the room. She brought a new dynamic to the bus and by the time she had been there for a few weeks even May was warming up to her but what worried Jemma was the flirtation between her and Ward. Skye wore a black band around her wrist similar to what May wore but she had obviously made it out of old material, she wondered if her and Ward were soulmates because he had a strap too and she never found out who’s name he had but she really hoped they didn’t even though it was selfish because Jemma had Daisy.

Jemma and Skye often ate lunch together or hung out with Ward and Fitz but she had never considered them friends until Skye said it in casual conversation and it was the highlight of her week. Apart from Skye being gorgeous she had a dry sense of humour that really grew on her and she could make any topic of conversation interesting (they once had an hour long discussion about dishwasher soup and they were both smiling the whole time). 

When Jemma found out that Ward was Hydra her first thought was Skye and how wrecked she must be so that was her number one worry, before anything else she needed to find Skye. She was lucky that that was everyone else’s priority too because when they found her it was awful because she was still looking out for them, for SHIELD. Jemma knows she couldn’t have done what Skye did.

She didn’t really get to much time to think about the betrayal because soon her and Fitz were at the bottom of the ocean and Jemma couldn’t help but wonder if she should have stayed at home after all but then she thinks of her sister and the speech about regrets and living your life that she gave her in the first place and she knew that all of it had been worth it. Although she did feel awful about leaving Daisy with a soulmate she would never meet. She had pretty much given up when Fitz figured out a way for one of them to make it out and that’s when he chose to confess that he’s in love with her (wow did that clear some stuff up) and she didn’t know what to say but she could still read her best friend like a book and knew that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he went up. But the thing is neither could she, she might not love him the way he loved her but she loved him more than she could imagine ever loving anyone, including Daisy, so she hauled him over her shoulder and swam for her damn life.

Being undercover was hard but it was good to be useful and it reminded her of her childhood police fantasies, she thought about Fitz constantly and Skye was prominent in her thoughts as well but she wanted to do this successfully so she tried to focus only on her task at hand. A lab worker two rows down had the last name Johnson and when she saw it she almost had a panic attack until she read his first name. That was probably the scariest moment working undercover at Hydra but she wasn’t something she was going to ever tell anyone.

When she reunited with Fitz it was bittersweet, he didn’t understand why she left and she couldn’t explain why because she wasn’t really sure herself. Skye had this complicated thing with her dad that Jemma wanted to sit down and figure out but she knew she needed to be there with Skye and the look that she had on her face when she saw Jemma was the best thing that she had ever experienced. There was a lot of catching up to be done and a lot of awkwardly standing around with Fitz but she was glad to be back and for things to have finally settled down.

She really shouldn’t have thought that, had she learnt nothing from horror movies but at least the time the surprise wasn’t bad. She waited until Skye -Daisy’s dad had calmed down or at least taken a break until she showed Daisy her wrist and her nerves were almost more than she could handle but when she saw her all Jemma could think about was kissing her and she knew that Daisy was thinking the same thing.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry the ending is terrible, i was just tired of looking at it. if you want daisy's pov let me know! kudos, comments and bookmarks mean the actual world to me, thanks for reading.


End file.
